By Tekla Perry GMTIs Lily a Drone？ Or Is It a Camera？

Photo： Tekla Perry This Atherton， Calif.， garage is home to Lily Robotics; now a five-person startup. Pictured （left to right） are Antoine Balaresque， cofounder and CEO; Henry Bradlow， cofounder and CTO; Nghia Ho， computer vision engineer; and Robb Englin， industrial designer. （Controls engineer Roland O‘Flaherty was out of the

Antoine Balaresque and Henry Bradlow are worried. They have developed an autonomous flying video camera for use in filming action sports on land and water， capturing scenery while hiking and sightseeing， and covering family events （so everyone gets in the picture）。 They think they’ve made it simple enough that a parent could just toss it in the air and forget about it while coaxing a child to take her first steps. They have enough seed money （$1 million in investment） to get the prototype they’ve been developing for the past year into production. The technology is coming along nicely; they’ve been able to hire the experts in computer vision， controls， and industrial design that they need， and they’re on track to ship in February 2016.

So what’s the problem？ The problem is that their product looks an awful lot like a drone—and they don’t want to be a drone company， they want to be a camera company.

Says Bradlow： “People buy drones because they want to fly something. That’s not what this is， this is a camera. You frame shots with it; you can’t control its flight.”

There are drones， Balaresque says， that carry cameras. These cameras send images to a cell phone， and users can look at the images while separately using the drones’ flight controls to position them for particular shots. Lily is nothing like that， he insists. You don’t fly it， you take pictures with it.

Balaresque got the idea for the project that became Lily Robotics in 2013. On vacation with his family after graduating from college， he browsed through the photos they’d taken—and realized his mother wasn’t in any of them. Most people would probably think， “Oh， I should take some of the pictures.” But Balaresque， who， despite having been a business major， had worked on a number of robotics projects in college， instead thought， “A robot could solve this problem.” When he got back to California， he contacted Bradlow， with whom he’d worked on several of those collegiate robotics projects， and they started developing Lily.

Photo： Tekla PerryPrototypes of Lily’s autonomous flying camera line a worktable inside the Lily garage.

Lily could be the poster child for a classic Silicon Valley startup. Its founders， fresh out of college （in this case， University of California at Berkeley）， met at a hackathon. They are working side-by-side， assembling hardware and coding software， with the company’s first few employees in a crowded garage. The garage sits behind an even more crowded hacker hostel owned， I am told， by a long-retired venture capitalist. The house’s porch is jammed with bikes and Segways and other wheeled vehicles; the grassy lawn around the house is overgrown but spacious—plenty big for testing a drone. A table near the pool， surrounded by mismatched chairs， serves as a conference room; the pool itself is used for testing water takeoffs and landings.

Balaresque and Bradlow started working on their technology shortly after that summer 2013 epiphany. Initially， they focused on developing software， particularly computer vision software， in order to make a camera “watch” the user. Their thinking at that point was that they’d mount it on a commercially available drone. But after about six months of development， they realized that existing drones lacked the processing power needed to handle flight controls and the computer vision system simultaneously. They also wanted a waterproof drone small enough to fit in a normal backpack; that just didn’t exist at the time.

The system they came up with uses a video processor to handle the main， high resolution camera. There are three microcontrollers： one controls the motors to stabilize the drone; the other two control the low-resolution cameras for tracking the user， keeping an eye on the ground in order to manage takeoffs and landings， and providing addional help with stabilizing the gadget. Rounding out the list of parts are an accelerometer， a gyroscope， a barometer， a magnetometer， and a GPS device.

A separate puck， designed to be tucked in a pocket or worn on an arm， tells the drone， via WiFi， whom to track. It first identifies the user’s location with a GPS receiver （though once that happens， the vision system， with a faster response time， does most of the tracking. The puck contains some basic controls： to switch the flying camera from following， to， say， circling， or to trigger it to take off or land. （More precise adjustments can be made with a mobile phone app.）。 The puck also contains an accelerometer to detect sudden changes in motion such as a jump or a fall. These sensors can be used to switch the camera to slow-motion mode at a critical moment. The puck also carries a microphone so the drone can pick up audio as it’s buzzing around recording video.

The Lily flying camera itself is still a work in progress. The prototypes I saw were 3-D printed， and carried low-res cameras; the production models will record HD quality video. But the system indeed does what its creators intended： It keeps the camera trained on the user in several different modes—following from behind， tracking from a set distance in front， circling， or hovering in midair as if held by an invisible selfie-stick （see video， above）。

Indeed， as I set up a camera and tripod to photograph the company’s founders and a short demo， I could definitely see the appeal of this gadget—not for extreme sports， but for day to day journalism. Wouldn’t I love camera gear that I didn’t have to juggle， but would instead follow me like an obedient puppy！

Lily’s camera will be priced at US $499 for preorders. The founders indicated that at this price， they wouldn’t be making money， but are looking for these early adopters to act as beta testers. Standard retail pricing will be $999. See Lily’s promotional video， below.

自動翻譯僅供參考

Lily是一架無人機，還是一部照相機？ is百合無人機？還是相機？

照片：Tekla Perry這頓，加利福尼亞，車庫里有莉莉機器人 現在一五人啟動。圖為（左至右）是安托萬balaresque，聯合創始人和首席執行官 亨利布萊特勞，共同創始人和首席技術官 義何，計算機視覺工程師 羅柏Englin，工業設計師。（控制工程師羅蘭與# 39 弗萊厄蒂不在

安托萬balaresque亨利布萊特勞擔心。他們已經開發了一個自主飛行視頻攝像頭，用于拍攝運動的土地和水，拍攝風景，同時徒步旅行和游覽，并覆蓋家庭事件（因此，每個人都在圖片中）。他們認為他們 做的很簡單，父母可以把它扔在空中，忘了它，哄孩子把她的第一步。他們有足夠的資金（100萬美元投資）得到原型他們 已經發展在過去的一年中投產。技術進展順利 他們 已經能夠在計算機視覺中，控制聘請專家，與工業設計的，他們需要的，他們’重新上軌道 到了二月的2016艘。

那么 的問題？問題是，他們的產品看起來像一架無人機在很多 他們不 不想是無人陪伴，他們想要的是一個相機公司。

說 人布萊特勞購買無人機，因為他們要飛的東西。那是 不這是什么，這是一個相機。你的照片它 你可以‘ 不控制它的飛行。

Balaresque說，有無人機攜帶攝像頭。這些相機將圖像發送到手機，用戶可以查看圖像，而單獨使用無人駕駛飛機的飛行控制，以定位他們的特定鏡頭。他堅持說，莉莉不是那樣的人。你不飛它，你用它拍照。

balaresque想到了這個項目，成為了莉莉機器人2013。在大學畢業后與家人度假，他翻閱照片他們 D采取 并實現了他的母親并 T在任何人。大多數人可能會認為，噢，我應該拍一些照片。但balaresque，誰，盡管是商業專業，曾在一些大學的機器人項目，而不是思想， 機器人可以解決這個問題。他回來到加利福尼亞的時候，他聯系布萊特勞，他 D曾在幾個大學機器人項目，他們開始開發百合。

photo：Tekla perryprototypes百合 的自主飛行相機線內的百合車庫工作臺。

百合可以成為經典硅谷創業的典范。它的創始人，剛畢業的大學生（在這種情況下，加州大學伯克利分校），在Hackathon。他們并肩工作，硬件組裝和編碼軟件，與公司 的幾個員工在一個擁擠的停車場。車庫坐在一個更擁擠的黑客宿舍后面，我告訴，我告訴，由一個長期的退休的風險資本家。房子 的走廊上擠滿了自行車和電動踏板車和其它輪式車輛 房子周圍的草坪雜草叢生但寬敞 amp;mdash 足夠大的測試無人機。游泳池附近的一張桌子，四周的凳子，作為會議室 池本身是用于測試水上起飛和降落。

balaresque和布萊特勞開始工作后不久，他們的技術，夏天2013頓悟。最初，他們專注于開發軟件，特別是計算機視覺軟件，為了使相機 看 用戶。他們的 在這一點上的想法是：他們 D安裝它在商用無人機。但是經過了大約六個月的發展，他們意識到現有的無人機需要處理飛行控制和計算機視覺系統所需要的處理能力。他們還希望有一個防水的無人機足夠小，適合在一個正常的背包 只是沒 不存在的時候。

系統他們想出了利用視頻處理器處理 主要的，高分辨率的相機。 有三微控制器：一個控制電機穩定無人機 其他 兩控制低分辨率攝像頭跟蹤用戶， 留意 地面以管理起飛和降落，并提供額外幫助穩定 小工具。完成零件的清單是一個加速度計、陀螺儀、氣壓計、磁強計和GPS裝置。

單獨的冰球，可以放在口袋或戴在手臂，告訴無人機，通過WiFi，誰跟蹤。首先將用戶 與GPS接收機的位置（雖然這種情況一旦發生，視覺系統，具有更快的響應時間，做大部分的跟蹤。冰球包含一些基本操作： 切換飛行相機后，說， 盤旋，或觸發它起飛或降落。（更精確的調整，可以用手機的應用程序。）。冰球也包含一個加速度計來檢測運動中的突然變化如 跳躍或跌倒。這些傳感器可以用來在一個關鍵時刻切換到慢動作模式的相機。冰球還帶有一個麥克風，無人機可以接音頻它 的周圍嗡嗡記錄 視頻。

百合飛行相機本身仍然是一個進展中的工作。我看到的原型是三維打印，并攜帶低分辨率相機 生產模式將記錄高清視頻質量。但系統確實是其創作者的意圖：它使訓練在幾個不同的模式-用戶的相機 從后面，從前面的跟蹤，設定距離盤旋，或懸浮在半空中，好像被一種無形的selfie堅持持有（見視頻，上面）。

“的確，我設置了一個相機和三角架拍攝公司 的創始人和一個短的演示，我可以看到這個小工具 amp;mdash上訴 不是極限運動，但每天的新聞。不是 T我愛我沒相機 沒有變魔術，而是像一個聽話的小狗跟著我

百合 的相機售價將在499美元的預購。創始人表示，在這個價格，他們就 不賺錢，但在這些早期采用者作為測試。標準零售價格將為999美元。看到莉莉 的宣傳視頻，下面。